Banditry and politic attitudes in the Andalusia of the Spanish War of Succession

Abstract

The case of agustín Florencio, chief of a bandits' band who acted violently in the andalusian country at the beginning of the 18th century, is studied in this paper as a way of deepening in the insufficiently known origins of the andalusian banditry, identified with the romantic period accord- ing to a persistent cliché that is precise to undo. Nevertheless, the profiles of the studied case bring us near also to the reality of an austrian posse active during the Spanish War of Succession in a region for the most part partial to Philip v, as well as to the evidence of the frequent jurisdictional conflicts between the royal justice and the ecclesiastic justice.